Normally when you hear about a dog attack, the object is either another canine or an owner or family member.

But now authorities are dealing with a different victim and it’s one of their own – a horse.

A member of the Toronto Police Mounted Unit was patrolling the Exhibition grounds on Sunday when a woman walking a pit bull and a Mastiff apparently lost control of their leashes.

The dogs charged at the startled steed named Trooper and the officer sitting on top of him. The result was a few moments of utter chaos.

“The officer was involved in trying to maintain the control of the horse and stay seated in the saddle,” explains Staff Inspector Bill Wardle of the Mounted Unit.

“The horse was trying to avoid the dogs as they were coming. And the owner was trying to get control of the leashes and pull them away from the horse. And it was an intense few moments and then the officer was able to get away. The owner got one dog and the other was captured.”

Both dogs are now in the city’s custody.

“One appears to be a pit bull. The other is more of a Mastiff, perhaps crossed with Rhodesian Ridgeback,” relates Don Mitton of Animal Control Services.

“They're both here at the Animal Centre and will be kept here until we have determined exactly what legal recourse we should be taking and of course those decisions are made following the completion of our investigation.”

There’s no word on why the pit bull wasn’t muzzled, a requirement under the government’s new law banning the animals in Ontario.

Trooper is a 17-year-old horse with 14 years of police service. He’s being treated with antibiotics and painkillers, and is expected to be back on duty in about a week.